(1) Field of the Invention
The present invention pertains to a truck-mounted pipe deployment system and methods for using a truck-mounted pipe deployment system to rapidly install temporary or semi-permanent piping lays with minimal labor requirements.
(2) Background of the Invention
Modern militaries consume a tremendous amount of fluid in their day-to-day activities. A modern fighting vehicle can burn through tens if not hundreds of gallons of fuel a day. Further, infantry and other human elements as well as vehicles require a large amount of water for drinking, cooking, cooling and other activities. This can add up to over 1 million gallons of fuel and water a day having to be provided at the military front to keep lines advancing.
When the force is in combat, or is simply deployed to a remote location far from supply depots, these fluids may not be readily available. While water sources may be nearby, the water may not be potable or may not be sufficient to meet needs. Further, even if water can be collected and purified from nearby sources, fuel can generally not be refined in the field. The diesel or jet fuel used by many fighting vehicles and used by support operations to run generators, pumps, heaters, filters, and other devices must be refined from crude oil in large refineries which cannot be taken to the battlefield.
Beyond the military, civilian organizations which work in areas which lack infrastructure can have similar problems. Disaster relief agencies have the need to bring in fuel for generators and to operate vehicles such as bulldozers or other earthmovers as well as to bring in potable water. In the areas where these services operate, existing infrastructure has usually been damaged, compromised, or destroyed prohibiting its use and requiring the agency to utilize portable systems.
While the transport of all fluids have similar problems, one fluid of particular note is fuel. Transport of fuel is particularly problematic because, particularly in the military, fuel is consumed in the process of transporting fuel. Therefore, there are large inefficiencies created in the transport of fuel. Generally, in the modern military, the only way to get fuel to those who need it is through the use of transport vehicles (such as, but not limited to, trucks, rail cars, boats, and aircraft). For forces which operate on the front lines (generally ground forces), getting them the fuel they need to remain operational requires a fairly complicated and costly supply chain.
Firstly, fuel is often brought to a supply depot that is arranged behind the front lines. This supply depot may have air or water access to allow transport planes or boats to bring in a large quantity of fuel at one time. This fuel is then transported from this supply depot to the front line. Often times, the depot is relatively immobile as the depot relies on the availability of the airfield or port for shipments of fuel. However, smaller subdepots (or fuel dumps) can be arranged closer to the front lines to allow for transport of fuel behind the lines in preparation of later transport to fighting forces. Such a subdepot arrangement can provide for quicker filling of fighting forces needs.
Currently, to get the fuel from a depot to a subdepot, or from the subdepot to the fighting forces, trucks or other ground transports are used. This generally results in convoys ferrying fuel across whatever terrain the fighting forces may have already covered, to reach the fighting forces and supply them.
The convoy is a highly inefficient way for transporting fuel. A fighting vehicle engaged in a combat operation or remotely deployed will generally be constantly on the move attempting to advance towards the enemy and engage them in combat to take ground. This means that every time a vehicle is refueled, it generally moves further away from its support structure requiring additional support structure.
Since the tucks which transport fuel also need fuel to get their loads from the depot to the fighting vehicles, those transports use up fuel to transport it to the fighting vehicles and to return to the depot empty for another load. Some of those vehicles use tremendous amounts of fuel to be able to traverse difficult terrain and due to their inherent inefficiency. As the fighting vehicles advance further and further, generally more and more fuel is needed for the fuel trucks to make the trip unless a new depot or subdepot can be established and other methods can be used to transport the fuel to these locations. This problem can rapidly lead to a breakdown of transportation and supply. If a fighting force moves too quickly or gets too far away from an established fuel depot, the amount of fuel used by the transport vehicles to get fuel to the fighting vehicles can be prohibitively expensive and/or consume resources that are better utilized elsewhere. It is possible that a supply chain could become broken because so much fuel would be consumed to get fuel to fighting vehicles, that there is none left to actually transport to the fighting vehicles. Further, as the system gets less and less efficient, damage to the fuel convoy or supply chain (such as a lost fuel shipment) can become more and more dangerous to the fighting vehicles which can end up stranded.
In the world of modern warfare, the fuel convoy, even when technically behind the lines, is also vulnerable to attack from enemy forces. As has recently been shown in U.S. military conflicts, fuel convoys are a popular target and the potential from an attack causing both loss of life and supplies and the taking of prisoners is enormous. Part of this reason is that fuel trucks, to maximize their transport capability, are difficult to armor or defend. Armorments are additional weight on the fuel truck which means that it spends more fuel trying to get where it is going, which means that it transfers less. Generally therefore, as trucks transporting fuel strive to be individually safer and resistant to attack, the convoy is forced to include more trucks. The increase in the number of trucks in turn makes the convoy larger and more vulnerable.
To try and deal with the problems presented by transporting fuel in trucks, it is desirable in many situations to install piping and pumps to enable the fuel to be pumped from one location to another. This is particularly efficient where there is a lower risk of a pipeline being attacked such as when it is behind friendly lines or can be easily defended by troops already present. Such a methodology can allow for more fuel to be moved closer to the fighting vehicles at a fraction of the fuel cost of a truck convoy. In a pumping system, the fuel can be transferred from the depot to the subdepot via the pipeline, and then trucks can deliver from the subdepot to more forward locations where their improved mobility and autonomous nature may be needed. Further, as the trucks do not have to travel as far, the trucks can be more heavily armored without a dramatic increase in the size of the convoy. This can provide for tremendous fuel savings in the transport operations. As the fighting vehicles move, more piping and pumps can be added allowing the subdepot to regularly move closer to the fighting vehicles allowing for improved efficiency.
In this methodology, trucks would only be used for the last leg of the transfer and the last leg can be significantly shortened over what the trucks traversed previously. As the pump and piping setup is generally much less expensive and much more fuel efficient than truck transport, this can make overall the fuel transport logistics more efficient and the fighting force more effective and more resilient to potential problems. In particular, more fuel can make it to the fighting vehicles in less time, allowing the military to better accomplish its goals and to take ground at a faster pace when the opportunity presents itself. While this system clearly has its benefits, it creates its own unique problems. In particular, the laying of piping requires its own logistics trail and support. Currently there are no mechanisms for deploying (or recovering) the pipeline and pumps quickly and with a relatively minimal amount of manpower as is necessary to support a military force which is constantly advancing. Current systems for laying a pipeline are generally fairly slow and require significant man hours to both deploy (lay) and recover.
Traditionally, laying a pipeline (or in fact any infrastructure which connects two points), the methods begin at one or both ends, and slowly build the pipeline toward the other end utilizing short rigid sections. Currently, the U.S. Army's system for deploying piping is a containerized package of rigid piping sections which are loaded on the back of a deployment vehicle (such as a Heavy Expanded Mobility Tactical Truck-Load Handling System (HEMTT-LHS) truck or other transport truck) to be deployed by engineers in the field. The containerized package is used so that outside of combat or deployment areas, the pipe sections can be transported or stored in shipping containers of the type well known to those of ordinary skill in the art.
To deploy the piping in this type of system, engineers drive the truck to the existing end point of the piping lay and slowly unload the sections, connecting each new section to the existing pipeline lay in sequence. When all the sections in a truck have been used, the truck returns to a supply point and gets a new container of pipeline sections, drives out to the new endpoint of the pipeline, and the process begins again. Alternatively, a collection of trucks may be sent simultaneously with each truck returning when empty. The problem with these systems is that each container can only hold a certain number of sections. Further, because the sections are rigid, and generally of a hollow cylindrical shape, there is a significant amount of wasted space in the container as each piece of piping defines a hollow center which space cannot be taken up by other sections. Therefore, the distance that the piping carried by a single truck can cover is often not that great. Further, each portion of the pipe carried by a single truck is actually comprised of a series of subsections which need to be connected together. Therefore, to lay all the pipe carried in even a single truck still requires significant connecting of pipe pieces. Further, these pipe pieces are generally not readily positionable once two or three have been fastened together (either because of weight, fear of strain, or other reasons).
It is generally not possible to attach the resulting piping into smaller sections and then combine these smaller sections together. Instead, the piping has to be installed in a relatively serial or sequential fashion, which is much slower. Further, because a single truck carries multiple pieces which need to be attached together, personnel are attaching piping even if the distance to be covered is short enough to only require a single truck's load of piping. A crew cannot begin placing (or laying) a later pipe section either from a single truck's load or from a later truck, until the position of all the prior sections is known without risking having subsections fail to connect and having to dismantle part of an assembled pipeline to connect it with the existing pipeline.
A further problem with these systems is the manpower and trucks required. Utilizing sections of rigid pipe means that each section of pipe takes up a volume including its entire internal volume (which is generally hollow) and the space inside the pipe is wasted on transport which means each truck carries less piping than it could. Further, to unload and connect the sections of pipe requires numerous personnel. Some can be unloading and placing the sections in a general layout while others are connecting the next sections to the existing sections before moving on. However, the unloading operation cannot proceed much ahead of the connecting operation or else the repositioning required from slight variations in placement begins to overtake any benefit gained from the advanced placing.